How Drought Delayed Privatization
Of Hydroelectric Assets in Brazil

By

Matt Moffett Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated July 20, 1999 12:01 a.m. ET

RECIFE, Brazil -- A blistering drought is hitting the vast, hardscrabble Northeast. Many city dwellers get tap water just one day a week, while some rural villagers survive on lizards and cactus. But what's really burning up the region is a fight over the government's effort to privatize the company that controls the electrical power, and water, for this quarter of the country.

Economic-policy makers say the privatization of Cia. Hidro Eletrica do Sao Francisco, or Chesf, along with the sale of other federally controlled...